AN: What is this I don't even.
The Wind Country lived or died by one simple rule: find water or die in the sand. Those who live in Suna encourage water to form away from their village to deter attack. From the nearest oasis, the Village Hidden in the Sand was a two and a half day run across unforgiving terrain in the searing heat and freezing dark at a ninja's top speed. For the caravans that traveled from the border to the capital, the spattering of watering holes were both heaven and hell: water was salvation, but that salvation brought out the demons eager to prey on fat merchants.
For Sakura, the Wind Country was a puzzle and the pieces were securely locked inside her head. She had run for an hour straight, eager to put as much distance between her and Kakashi as she could. The minister's parting words still echoed in her skull: if Kakashi truly did know about her duplicity, he would be loath to let the girl out of his sight. He could very well have orders to eliminate her should she escape his watch. Thoughts of the cat-masked ANBU chased Sakura relentlessly across the desert. She had sailed past the Western Oasis, barely taking notice that it didn't look as if it had hosted recent visitors.
Even in flight, though, the girl's mind was bent toward a purpose. She had settled her conundrum: it was highly likely that the group that had ambushed the caravan would be looking to repeat their attack further on the road to Suna. Even though their casualties had been massive, they had decimated and split Konoha's forces. Furthermore, they had a hostage and a potential source of information. Hinata was limited in her usefulness, but they had grabbed her for some reason. At the very least she could tell them what the original force strength was, their provisions, information about the minister and his two bodyguards, and who the important members of the caravan were.
And, above all, they had a two day head-start to dig in and prepare.
When Sakura had hit the Western Oasis, she had traveled underground a ways to throw off any pursuit. She found her technique wanting due to the limited range of her right arm, but cutting through the sand was much simpler than packed dirt. Running atop the dunes in places and diving back into the sand feet-first in others allowed Sakura a fairly efficient method of locomotion. The pre-noon sun was already sweltering and traveling underground when the heat became too much helped Sakura keep up her stamina.
Now a bit calmer, Sakura had turned east and was shadowing the road the main caravan would be taking. There were several places along the way that Sakura thought an ambush would happen: the road split half-way to Suna into a valley system which Hisagi had marked as "trouble" and a wide expanse of desert without a single stopping point. The valley route had limited water, but it leisurely twisted and turned until it came out at the final stretch of road that led directly into Suna; the cut through the desert was less of an alternative route than a mad dash through the dunes that shaved a day off any journey to Suna – provided you carried your water with you.
Along the way, though, were several stops to check. Even if the enemy rushed for the road's fork it was impossible that they made it without stopping anywhere to resupply and rest. They would need water at the very least without their bandit comrades to carry supplies for them. A group of above twenty would need to stop regularly to rehydrate, especially after a tough fight.
The only question was where they would stop at. From Hisagi's map, Sakura had a clear picture of t web of wells and oases scattered throughout the desert. It was possible to hop from oasis to oasis along the main road without missing their supply window. In fact, the road itself was built along a string of stops. Motivated ninja could make the trip in little over a day. Ninja who had just sustained massive casualties, were facing an unknown number of ANBU, and weighed down with a ninja prisoner wouldn't possibly risk being that predictable.
If I had to elude capture in this desert, Sakura thought as she leapt over the crest of a dune, Ho would I stagger my travel? Would I risk going into the deep desert and looping around?
These ninja had been clever enough to set up an ambush that nearly wiped the entire mission, so the chance they would waste the element of surprise by staying with the road was small. Sakura scrambled to the top of the next wave of dunes and looked out into the open desert. She couldn't see the next oasis, but the map said it was out there, somewhere, beyond the blistered horizon. Now was certainly not the time to start doubting her photographic memory. Sakura pulled out her goggles, one of her only possessions to survive both the attack and her time in medical, and set her face toward the sun and started at the dunes again, this time veering sharply into the desert. At full speed, the trip to the next oasis would take hours.
She was getting something productive done while she was traveling, though. Sakura was sticking to running along the top of the dunes as she scribbled in her little spy book. She hadn't reported on the mission so far, but given how intimate her work seemed to be with the Oto delegation Sakura didn't want to put it another moment. Now was also the first true bit of free time she had to report without running the risk of being discovered. If Kakashi already knew of her activities then she certainly couldn't let this book fall into his hands and give him physical evidence of her betrayal. A few words about the trip and the attack went first, but her standing orders were character summaries: Sasuke's talk with her went on for a full page and her time at the pits with Kakashi took up nearly as much. After a few extra notes about Naruto's mood, Sakura un-summoned the journal and tucked its scroll back into her pouch.
Today she didn't feel the usual guilt associated with actively betraying her comrades. For the first time her link to Oto had been useful; the minister needed her for some kind of mission in Suna, thus he'd leave her to her rescue mission. Kakashi hadn't done that. Maybe he didn't want her out of his sight because of what he thought he knew, but letting her go out after Hinata was win-win for him: if Sakura succeeded, she would bring Hinata back; if she failed, she'd be dead and the village would be safer. She couldn't understand how his mind worked and it wasn't her job to. So long as she stayed one step ahead of him, and everyone else close to her, Sakura would come out on top. If Oto could hire bodyguards from every hidden village from Rice to Wind, then obviously they had the influence and money to protect their assets. Sakura, by getting back Hinata, would prove herself an asset to Konoha; by doing her best on whatever mission the minister was doing in Suna she would prove herself a continuing asset to Oto. It was a juggling act that would have, a year ago, made Sakura break out in a cold sweat; now it was a way of life – a new way of life that was allowing her to help her two new allies.
The sand was cool against Sakura's skin as she ducked back under. Her pace had slowed to write her report to make certain that her split attention wouldn't cause her to miss anything important. Now she making up for lost time. When the dunes were too high to leap over, she'd go through just as straight and direct as a thrown kunai. Her skill with the Moguragakure no Jutsu had improved to the point where she could cut through soft, yielding earth, like the Suna sand, as easily as water without losing much momentum. Sakura would be relying on this skill to get her close to her query when she found them, hoping that they wouldn't expect a Konoha-nin to use dotons so completely. How effective the technique would be plucking Hinata from a large group of enemy ninja was suspect, but it was the best Sakura had so far.
Sakura took a deep breath every time she leaped from dune to dune. Breathing exorcises were vital to her jutsu style. During the attack, it was lack of breath that put Sakura in harm's way. She had been forced to surface after planting the explosives, thus exposing herself to the blast to get a breath of air. Her limit, after months of conditioning, was two and a half minutes. She wanted to get to three before finding Hinata. She knew there was only so much training could do for twelve year-old lungs, but Sakura desperately wanted three full minutes of unchecked movement underground. When the dunes of the periphery desert shifted into rolling flat plains of sand, Sakura remained under the earth totally, pushing her speed and breathing to the limit, surfacing in great vaulting leaps for air and gulps of water before plunging back in feet-first.
Under the ground, Sakura's arms spread chakra out like massive paddles, sifting the sand into even finer bits with every stroke. Her feet pushed at the ground behind and her sweeping breaststrokes propelled her forward with the speed of a brisk run above ground. Within her personal space, Sakura was aware of every speck of gravel larger than a river stone. Her chakra, endowed with earth nature, lanced anything that could slow her progress and shattered it into its most basic form; after so much practice, it was nigh-automatic. Sakura's actual attention focused on the desert surface two feet over her head. Anything that wasn't stone she'd stop and examine, looking for signs of a hasty retreat. So far she'd only found bits of iron from old wagon hubcaps or animal bones, but Sakura kept at it until she felt the ground grow cooler from the oasis.
Unlike the desert, the soil around the oasis teemed with roots and actual sediment – not unlike the rough soil of the Fire Nation. Sakura slowed her frantic pace and picked her way through palm roots as unobtrusively as possible; she hadn't seen anyone at the watering hole on her last trip topside, but now was not the time to take chances. Sakura picked her way through the web of palm roots, cutting them when she couldn't get through but making sure not to disturb the topsoil. When she found a taproot, she followed it up.
Sakura's head rose from the ground like it was breaking the surface of a placid lake, though only up to her eyes. She had luckily popped up right under a half dozen fallen palms, their wide bodies concealing the girl's vantage point.
The oasis was deserted. Sakura heard only the sound of wind rattling the palms above her and the slight trickle of flowing water. Her head gently broke the surface of earth and she pulled away her vegetative cover. Slowly, she kicked up out of the ground and took a good look around. There was a large pool of precious water flowing from an underground spring in the middle of the greenery once every few moments bubbles broke the surface from its deep source. There were dozens of palm trees growing in a ring around the water with ferns and long-blade grass peppering the ground.
Sakura went to work looking for indicators that humans had been through recently. She quickly found deep ruts in the damp soil that indicated wagons had been through, but the grass in them had already rebounded back up, indicating that they were a few days old. There was a soot pile beside the water, but it too hadn't been made recently.
Crescent hoof marks were fresher. A large body of shoed horses, upwards of a hundred, had lingered here. Tents and cook fires had been set out where the desert met the oasis, away from the vegetation. In all likelihood this was a stop for part of the bandit hoard that had attacked the caravan.
Something shiny on the bark of a palm caught Sakura's attention as was examining a burnt-out cook fire. She gingerly walked over, mindful of traps, and found that a tree on the edge of the oasis had a number of long needles jutting out of it. Sakura pulled one free; it was, if Sakura was any judge of metalwork, made of high-quality iron – similar to the kind Konoha used in its kunai and shuriken. Sakura had never seen a ninja use needles as weapons, but they were driven into the wood fairly deep and she could think of no other reason for them to be so placed. For sure a skilled eye and hand would be required to use such projectiles and a needle-tossing bandit was an image Sakura's mid balked at. The ninja had been coordinating with their distraction before the attack, not using them as a screen like Sakura had thought. What did that mean for her search, though?
"There are too many traces of activity here," Sakura observed, breaking the silence with her mutter. She could see the bandit camp in her mind's eye just – the ninja mingled with their hired swords, perhaps sharing fires or exchanging war stories. Such a setup could work before their prey had an idea that a far more dangerous hunter was lurking in the sand than usual. After everything fell apart, though, would just the ninja risk returning? Sakura knew she had hit the answer with her first reaction: they would not. It was too easy to see what had gone on here to come back. They had skipped this oasis altogether and had went on to a new one.
Sakura looked over at the oasis waters, the few exotic desert animals drinking from it now that they thought she had moved on, and it reinforced her conclusion. If ninja had been here in the midst of a retreat, they would have surely poisoned the water to delay pursuers. She topped off her skins with fresh water and mentally skipped the next few stopping points. If she had been fleeing, she would have completely broken a typical search radius and risked dehydration to get to a safe stopping point. There were, according to Hisagi's map, multiple stopping points further into the desert, but only a handful that would give an enemy time to both rest and still be in range of the caravan to set a fresh ambush. It was likely that they were also planning blind – they wouldn't risk losing a scout to alert ANBU that already knew their tactics.
It could be a blessing or a curse that they probably didn't know the caravan had split. They would be more cautious thinking that whatever force Konoha had left was continuing on, but they also wouldn't be expecting a single agent. Sakura knew that the larger the force you were preparing for the larger the holes in security, especially if you were in a rush. They would trap the desert for miles out if they expected a war party to come down the main road; up close, their preparations would be overlooked due to the prep time a wide screen would demand. All Sakura had to do was pick her way past the outlying traps and avoid detection long enough to get Hinata.
'Yeah, it'll be just that easy,' Sakura sardonically thought. It was nothing but wishful thinking that she could even get within visual range of wherever the ninja were at. Wishful thinking was all the girl had to go on at the moment, though.
Sakura had to put herself on water rations since any natural watering holes would likely be poisoned from this point onward. She ate some strips of dry meat, though not enough to make herself full. In the desert heat traveling on a full stomach would mean sickness and she couldn't afford to be off her game. The small pouch of soldier pills rattled against each other in her utility belt. From what she knew, a soldier pill gave a momentary burst of chakra. Sakura didn't know how long it would last, but it was rumored to give a regular soldier enough vigor to fight for three days and nights. What that translated to with a ninja's metabolism was anyone's guess, though.
The next oasis…the next oasis and she'd use one. That's what Sakura decided to do. If she wasted a pill now, before even meeting the enemy, it would be devastating. Her regular reserves of water and food would have to do until she hit her target.
It was another three hours of running and burrowing before Sakura saw a tall palm in the distance. Even dressed and traveling like she was, Sakura was beginning to feel the desert heat take its toll on her body. There was no denying that she was tired and needed a break.
Time for a break, though, was something Sakura didn't have. She had skipped three different stopping points to make a mad dash to this, the oasis at the farthest southwest of her search radius. From here she'd follow the outlying ring of oases until she arrived at the canyon that would lead her to Suna and, hopefully, the ambush.
Mirroring her approach to the previous oasis, Sakura dove under the sand. She would use the Moguragakure to get close, find a good place to surface, and then see if anyone was still milling around.
This oasis was smaller than the last. It had barely a dozen palms scattered around a small pool of water that Sakura could feel through the damp topsoil. Even if she couldn't drink the water Sakura was glad it was there: the coolness of the earth eased the heat of her skin from the sun. She lingered underground as long as her lungs would allow it and stretched out her chakra to its limit to probe the sand above for any sign of movement. When she didn't feel any, Sakura surfaced.
There was death in the air – Sakura could smell it the second her nose exited the soil. She pulled one of her red soldier pills from her pouch and popped it into her mouth, letting it settle in her jaw. Truthfully, she didn't know if she should break the hard shell or not before swallowing, but it couldn't hurt. She bit down hard on the pill and gulped down the bitter, powdery remains.
Her senses instantly sharpened. What Sakura had thought was a horrible odor became an overpowering stench that triggered her gag reflex. As her body settled, Sakura searched for the smell's source. She stalked low to the ground through the underbrush, not needing to search very long for so obvious a rot: littered about the oasis reservoir itself were several bodies.
The corpses in the water had already started to bloat, their skin puffing out and straining against their clothes and slothing where it wasn't covered. Two men were laying in the grass beside the pool, also deceased. The sun had dried their skin out to where it was sunken on their bones. Sakura had seen pictures in textbooks describing the decay of corpses, but this was the first time she had seen one up-close.
They were ninja. Sakura recognized the green military vests that were popular among every major village. There were variations of course, but the style wasn't mimicked by any standard army. The sun reflected off their headbands, the ones Sakura could see, and most had kunai or shuriken sticking out of them. Sakura held her nose and approached to check the insignia she knew would be etched on the headbands. The bodies in the water were floating back-up, but the ones on the ground were easy to get to. The nearest one was laying on its side and Sakura stepped closer to turn it face-up with her foot. Her sandal caught the body's shoulder and she pushed, intending to tip it over.
A small click told Sakura she had made a mistake.
Pure soldier pill-fueled adrenaline saved Sakura's life as her legs pushed her backwards before her conscious mind recognized the body was booby-trapped. She had disturbed an explosive that was set to a pressure switch and it had blown through the body. Sakura was up in the air when it exploded and was only thrown into the trunk of a tree a dozen feet back – the body that she had wanted to examine was destroyed from the waist-up. Stunned, the Genin used the spiny bark of the palm to pull herself back to her feet.
She looked to the red-splattered crater that had once been a man's corpse and emptied her stomach. After a few dry heaves, she gulped half of her water skin to get the taste of bile out of her mouth and frantically tried to wash the worst of the gore off her body. Her training was telling her to get rid of the smell, but right now she was running on the instincts of a shocked twelve year-old. When a piece of intestine flopped down from her hair, Sakura screamed and ripped off her pilfered cloak to scrub furiously at her scalp with it which only dislodged more gore.
Sakura ran – away from the horrific sight that had burned into her mind; away from the putrid water of the oasis she couldn't wash with; away from the unseen deathtraps that had almost claimed her life. She hit the sand of the open desert and dove into it, sinking a few feet and trashing violently in the sand to scourge the putrid innards that were lurking in her hair and clothes. How long she stayed under was impossible to gauge, but when Sakura finally came out of her shock she hacked up a mouthful of sand.
Her nostrils flared, trying to pick up on even the slightest smell of rot. The only thing going through her mind was overpowering disgust. The sand, as gritty and horrible as it was sticking to her sweat-soaked skin and clothes, was a welcome alternative to the blood and bits of corpse that she was caked in. Forgetting her rationing, Sakura upended the remainder of her first skin of water and the full second on her arms, legs, and head to wash off the splatter. She didn't care how much she was gutting her effectiveness in the desert – her mind wouldn't let her move until she was clean. The places on her body where she could feel the stickiness of blood not her own were drenched and scrubbed with sand until her skin cracked and welted. Her hair, which she usually took so much pride in, was scrubbed in the sand so much it took on the gritty khaki color of the desert.
When Sakura finally came to her senses she was on all fours, rubbing her hair so hard in the sand that it had created a rut. She stopped and flopped to the ground, only just managing to roll herself over.
Still in a daze, the girl ran a hand through her hair, smiling stupidly when it only came out with muddy sand stuck to it and not guts. Specks of blood trickled onto her cheek, but they came from the weeping stich holes on her arm which had reopened during her trashing. Sakura clumsily wiped at them with her left hand, smearing blood across her cheek.
Her head was still filled throbbing like it was filled cotton, but something inside was screaming to get out of the sun. She stood, wobbling like a drunk on her feet, and trudged back towards the oasis from hell. She didn't make it to the water – she didn't want to make it to the water – but there were no bodies along the edge. Her foot hit a root and she stumbled, falling into the grass. It was more comfortable than the sand and there was shade from a large palm tree.
Sakura tried to get her nerves to settle. She had been wearing pieces of another human. Not even the burn pits had been that bad. A burning corpse in a hole was a lot different than a corpse rigged to explode.
Sitting there in the hot sun, blood on her face and bits of rotting ninja on her, Sakura realized she wished she was back at the caravan. Kakashi's talk of war and death seemed like trite nonsense at the time, but now it ringed true – she wasn't ready for this. Even if he thought she was a spy Sakura would have gladly ran back if she could. She had never considered herself a coward, especially not after surviving two years of her double life, but right now she wanted to be back at home in her bed and waking up from this nightmare.
But if she did would the minister report back to Oto that she had disregarded an order? Sakura fingered the silver ring he had given her; its cool metal reminded Sakura of the reward he had given her and his promise that it would be a boon so long as she kept it on. Whether it was for good service in Konoha or her actions during the raid Sakura didn't know – nor did she care. He had let her come out here for her own personal reasons and put himself on the line for it. If the Hokage didn't agree with his reasoning for retaining her further it could be his hide on the line as much as hers.
And then there was the reason for coming out here in the first place: Hinata was still in this desert somewhere. Whoever was holding her was a member of whatever village those dead men in the oasis were from. The only person that cared enough to break the rules and go out after her was Sakura. Other than her, Hinata didn't have anyone.
Suddenly her problems seemed infinitely smaller. Two people that had believed in her abilities were riding on her actions and she was eager to run back to her teacher. A lesson from her academy days, before they had been ruined, suddenly popped into her head: the 25th saying of the shinobi.
The words sprang to Sakura's lips. "No matter what situation a shinobi must keep emotions on the inside. You must make the mission your top priority and you must possess a heart that never shows tears." She had learned it along with hundreds of other sayings throughout the years, but the words had no meaning at the time. Now the girl clung to them. She wouldn't desert either of her missions. She would find Hinata and get back to Suna to help the minister or she'd die trying.
Sakura started for the now-placid pool of water slowly, but with a new determination in her eyes. She wouldn't be kicking over any corpses again – she couldn't afford to be that stupid anymore. The one remaining body not in the water had been disturbed by the explosion and was laying face-down. He was wearing a skin-tight outfit with a flak vest on over it, but she couldn't see any emblems so long as he was situated like that.
No mistakes this time. Sakura formed a simple goat seal and focused a burst of chakra into her feet.
"Doton: Earth Flow Spears!" The genin sent a ripple through the soil and made the ground under the corpse shoot upwards in a large spike. It rose a few feet under the dead man's shoulder, tipping him until he rolled onto his back. Sakura was still disgusted by the sight and smell of the corpse, but so long as she didn't stare at the rot too long her skin didn't crawl quite so much.
The glint of worn steel was Sakura's reward. Even if his headband hadn't shown he was from Hidden Rain the trashed rebreather hanging out the remains of his mouth would have. His vest pockets were full as well, but she didn't dare go through them. Even her own weapons pouch was sealed against entry and she was just a genin – this man, either a chuunin or a jounin, would have had something special waiting on any hand other than his own opening them.
There was little doubt how he died. Imbedded in his neck and chest were more of the needles Sakura had found at the first oasis along with an assortment of other nin tools. A glance at the bodies floating in the oasis showed that they expired due to the same metal affliction. Six corpses in all, each killed in the same violent fashion.
Something was going on that Sakura didn't account for. A schism in the ambush team? A personal disagreement gone horribly wrong? Perhaps even sabotage? Sakura didn't know what could make the Rain-nin turn on each other, but she was going to capitalize on it. She had enough water for one nonstop trip to the next oasis, but after that she'd run out. All of her hopes rested on finding the next water source uncontaminated.
And she had to hurry. Six dead ninja was an enormous dip in the manpower pool. If more died, then whoever led the war party might call off the mission and make a break north for the border. Hinata would be gone too far for Sakura to chase her down before the minister's deadline.
She decided to leave her cloak at the oasis. There was no way she was putting that back on even though the sun was pitiless. 'Besides, the smell would alert anyone down wind that I was coming,' she rationalized.
What kept Sakura from charging out of the oasis full of her new-found vim and vigor was the pain her body was wracked with now that she was down from her adrenaline high. The franticness in the desert had popped a stitch in her arm and it was weeping blood. She bandaged it as best she could and got the bleeding stopped, but it throbbed each time the skin around the broken stitch stretched. It was her ribs, though, that worried her the most. The bruising was further spread than it had been and her breathing problem was back again.
Sakura looked up at the desert sun through the trees. It was just after two she figured by its position. With her injuries and the desert working against her how far could she get before dropping of exhaustion? Her chest was hurting so much that digging through the desert was sure to be impossible. And, if she caught up with the enemy at the next oasis in this condition could she take Hinata from them?
All signs pointed to the negative. Sakura still felt uneasy from her brush with death earlier and her nerves were already shot from the confrontation with Kakashi and the revelation that he was suspicious of her. If she had to fight it would be a horribly short one.
It was time for a break. As much as she hated it, Sakura knew she couldn't go on until her chest settled down and that would take rest. The oasis, if not unsettling and disgusting, was the safest place nearby. Sakura went as far away from the bodies as she could and made herself a sunken cot in the earth and filled it with leaf litter and grass. Thus settled, she pulled out the bottle of morphine and accompanying needle she had taken from the medical tent. She had watched the medics administer enough to the people there to give herself a sufficient dosage to numb her pain. Between that and her own mental exhaustion, Sakura was soon lulled into a fitful sleep for a few scant hours of rest.